The present invention relates generally to a system for routing a path. More specifically, the invention relates to a path routing system to be employed in a communication network which is constituted of a multiplexer for multiplexing multi-media information and a plurality of transmission lines.
In the conventional routing method, an originate node (hereinafter referred to as "start node") transmits a routing message to an adjacent node, and the node receiving this routing message performs a search for a transmission line in a vacant band and transmits the routing message to an adjacent node (a bypass node) connected to the corresponding transmission line.
The above-mentioned search and transmission of the routing message is repeated until a terminal node is connected so that the path can be established in an autonomous manner.
However, such a conventional path routing method does not allow the use of a designation of an attribute of the transmission line. Therefore, it encounters the problem for difficulty in establishing optimal path connection for the communication network, such as:
path connection only through transmission lines of "attribute: minimum delay";
path connection only through transmission lines of "attribute: highest quality";
path connection only through transmission lines of "attribute: minimum operating cost".